


long way from georgia

by leobrat



Category: The Walking Dead (TV), The Walking Dead - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Kidnapping
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-19
Updated: 2015-01-22
Packaged: 2018-03-08 04:38:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3195611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leobrat/pseuds/leobrat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Later, when Beth thinks of that last morning on the farm, she wants to laugh at how peaceful it seemed. Laugh, and then cry and then scream. (AU, Daryl and Merle are with Joe's gang from the beginning of the ZA, and Beth is 'claimed' by Joe when they take the Greenes' farm.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, many thanks to badboy_fangirl for taking a look at this and offering encouragement and some pointers.
> 
> Here's what you need to know as far as set-up goes: Daryl and Merle never joined Shane's group at the quarry, and found Joe's gang early on in the ZA. Otis never shot Carl, so Rick and Shane (and everyone else) never made their way to the farm either. To put it in the timeline of the show...We'll say this starts in the midst of s2.

Later, when Beth thinks of that last morning on the farm, she wants to laugh at how peaceful it seemed. Laugh, and then cry and then scream.

 

For some reason, Maggie had been very reluctant to go on her run that morning. They were running low on necessities that they hadn’t quite figured out how to do without yet (like tampons), so she knew she would have had to go eventually, but she hung back today at the door, looking back and forth between Beth and their dad, reading over his old biology books for the umpteenth time. 

 

“Is it the weather?” Beth asked, looking out at the clear blue skies.

 

“I don’t know,” Maggie shook her head. “Just this bad feeling that I shouldn’t leave y’all out here alone.”

 

“Hey,” Beth reached out for her big sister’s hand. “We’ll be fine. ‘Sides, we’re the ones who are supposed to be worrying about you, out there on your own. And you bet we’re worried, so go stock up and get home quick.”

 

Maggie threw her a tender smile and they both repeated their dad’s gentle words. “We’ve all got jobs to do.” And laughed.

 

Maggie took Beth’s horse, Whisper, a sweet, dapple-gray mare, to town because Nellie (who only ever tolerated Maggie) was favoring a sore ankle. Beth waved her off as she went back to her chores.

 

An hour later, she sits with her wrists crudely tied in front of her, holding her breath and biting her lip so hard she can taste blood. The men who have done this mill around her home, grabbing things off shelves and walls and carelessly stuffing them into plastic trash bags. Without thinking, she’d cried out _no_ when one of them swiped several sheets of music off the piano, saying something about kindling and they’d taken the time to glance down at her and laugh. And calling attention to herself had been a bad move.

 

Her father’s head rolls into her leg, staring up at her with unseeing blue eyes, dead to the world.

 

 _Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t make any noise, don’t cry,_ Beth repeated over and over in her head. _Don’t make any noise, don’t call attention, they have to be gone before Maggie gets back. Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry._

And she is so lost in her own mantra that she gasps in surprise when a rough hand grabs her up by the back of her ponytail and calls out one word. 

"Claimed!" 

 

*

 

She drags her feet after the big, hulking man who’s leading her on a rope tied to her wrists like she’s an animal. A few of the other men have chickens tucked under her their arms, and two of those assholes have the remaining horses. Nellie was left in the stable, kicking her stall as West and Wolfhound were led away with rough hands, still not used to anyone but Shawn handling them.

 

Beth stares at the ground, putting one foot in front of the other. All she can think about is getting away, getting these men away before Maggie gets back.

 

“Why ain’t we staying here, least a few nights, Joe?” The man holding Wolfhound prods him, coming to walk alongside Beth’s captor.

 

“More than enough daylight hours, got to keep heading down the road,” Joe answers, and Beth’s ears perk up. So that’s his name. Joe. He’d brushed off the other guy carelessly, but even she caught that there was something off. No time to worry about that right now though.

 

They’re passing by the barn, just a few more steps and they’ll be in the woods, hidden, lost, and Beth takes one last look over her shoulder, the sun high in the sky shining down on the only home she’s ever known. The door hangs askew off its hinges where one of them kicked it in. She thinks about how Maggie will feel when she comes back from town, finding the house like that and then when she goes inside…

 

No, no she can’t think of that. If she thinks of that, she’ll fall down in the dirt right where she is, and she needs these men to be gone. What happens after, she’ll think of that later.

 

The barn groans as they pass by, and Beth does her best not to look over at it. She can’t think about what’s inside there either.

 

“What in the hell is that…” Joe drags her rope over to it, and Beth pulls back, ever so-slightly, but it’s enough for him to notice. He looks over his shoulder at her and his craggy old face splits in a joker’s grin. “What’cha hiding in there, my little Georgia peach?” Beth cowers under his stare and he laughs, jerking her closer. “Donnie! Check on this barn, here!”

 

Another huge thug saunters up, with an honest-to-God _battle axe_ and swings once at the heavy chains holding the barn doors close. The noise rattles the creatures inside, to the point that there is no mistaking what the barn is hiding, and now Beth does fall in the dirt. Joe jerks her rope, giving it a sharp tug. "Are you _fuckin'_ kiddin' me?" He shouts again for Donnie to keep going, and after a few good swings, the padlock gives way and one after another groans out. Some of the men are struck dumb by the sight of them all, rotting corpses reaching for the daylight.

 

The doors are opened just enough for two or three to push out at a time, and it's easy pickings for seasoned hunters, who hadn't thought twice about hacking a man's head off with a sword. Beth loses count of them as they fall, she hadn't realized her dad had captured so many. She's holding her breath, and then she sees it, sees _her_.

 

_Mom._

 

She sees her mother snapping and snarling and reaching for her just before a bullet cuts between her eyes, and Beth sees a hint of her brother’s red hair falling after his mother, and it hits her. 

 

This is the world now. 

 

For all the faith she's had in her daddy, who could always make _everything_ right, she'd been wrong. The world had all gone wrong and there was no going back.

 

*

 

They keep going for another full night and day. If any of the other men are curious as to why Joe wants to keep pushing down the road, towards the end of the world, they don't bring it up. Beth just puts one foot in front of the other and tries to figure out how far away they are from the farm. Maggie would have definitely returned by now, maybe Patricia and Otis would have stopped by, as they did every few days. At the thought of her family, and what Maggie would have seen when she did come home, Beth shuts her mind off.

 

Finally, the endless walking comes to an end, at a not-so-particular place in the woods. The now familiar chorus of _claimed_ calls out among the men, as they drop their packs in their own little areas. Beth doesn't know what makes this clearing, these trees any different. But she figures...now is her chance. They all have to rest at some point and she can slip away. She can try. And what else could they do to her at this point anyway?

 

She accepts a few sips of water from the bottle Joe hands her and even tries to keep down a few bites of what she learns is snake. He laughs at her grimace.

 

When she’s done eating, she burrows into herself, twisting her wrists under the chafing ropes and takes a good long look at the bastards who killed her father.

 

She's figured some things out on the endless walk- Joe is clearly the leader. He's older, in his sixties she guesses. She can’t picture someone like him in the old world- she’d heard that West Georgia Correctional had come overrun some time ago, and she wonders if that’s where these men came from. Other than Joe, she’s picked up on a few of the names. They’re all very similar, hard and rough, dirty clothes and various kinds of crazy weapons that look like they should have come from a movie set or something. There’s Donnie, with the battleaxe, and Len with his bow-and-arrows, who had dogged behind Joe every step of the way, sniffing at her and leering, until Joe reminded him that she was ‘claimed’.

 

_Claimed._

 

There’s only one explanation for that, Beth is sure.

 

But Joe makes no move towards her that night, keeps her tied and pushes her down and tells her to get some shut eye. Warns her not to try anything, and that they’ll be headed out again at dawn. Once agin, Beth wonders what the rush is, but she just nods, compliantly. Joe smiles, genuinely jolly, and it makes her skin crawl. “Good girl.” He pats her head and she does her best not to wince. Then he calls out for another one of the men, Merle, to keep watch for the night.

 

One by one, the men drift off, and Beth stays cowered in a little ball, feigning sleep. Merle is a big guy with a crew cut, slightly balding in the back, and he paces listlessly back and forth, smoking cigarette after cigarette. He’s not concerned with conservation, that’s for sure. Every once in a while, he hefts a crossbow and aims, somewhere in the woods, some faint sound. But nothing approaches in the darkness.

 

After a time, he glances around the fire, at the stillness and his gaze falls on her for a long time. Her eyes are barely opened, but she wonders if her sleep act is not fooling him. And then he turns and walks away, into the woods.

 

When she can’t hear the crunching of twigs and leaves any more, she doesn’t hesitate for a second. She jumps up and _runs_ as fast as she can.

 

*

 

Beth spits out blood and gingerly tries to move her jaw. Her muscles move when she wills them to, so she knows it's not broken.

 

She hadn’t gotten a hundred yards into the woods, barely seeing in front of her, when she could hear the heavy footsteps behind her and rough hands pulled her down. She screamed and a dirty hand clamped over her mouth. “Shut the _fuck_ up.” It was Joe, and he was not jolly any more. He smacked her once across the face, hard, and then seemed to think better of it, and hefted her over his shoulder. 

 

She felt like she’d run for ages, but they’re back at the camp in minutes. Joe drops Beth unceremoniously on the ground, and she lands on her side. All of the men have woken up at this point. Merle looks ever-so-slightly contrite. “Sorry Joe, was droppin’ the kids off at the pool, didn’t think she’d try something so stupid.” Beth’s stomach curdles.

 

Joe looks down at her, ghost of a smile, though this one is all cruelty. “Feisty little thing. That’s good. Gareth’s going to like you.” At this, a few of the men chuckle. “What am I gonna do with you now, gotta get you to Terminus more or less...in tact.” And at this, Joe laughs uproariously at his own joke, though Beth doesn’t understand the punchline. “Tell me something, sugar...are you a virgin?”

 

All of the men are quiet, awaiting her response. Beth blushes scarlet in the firelight. She’d been waiting for this, she _knew_ that ‘claimed’ meant this. But to his question, she doesn’t know the correct answer. So she just tells the truth. “Yes.” 

 

It’s barely audible, but it’s enough for Joe to grin, wider than ever, and Beth feels real and true terror. She’d been numb, seeing her father and her mother cut down, but her road is not over and these men mean to make it a living hell.

 

“I knew it,” he says, and Beth feels vaguely insulted on some level, though she knows that is ridiculous. He turns back to the men and points to her. “You boys remember now, this here is _claimed_. That means off-limits. We’re going to Terminus!” A few of the men let out whoops of excitement, a few others look confused. Joe beckons one of them forward. “Daryl, c’mere.”

 

This man is younger than the rest, but looks like more of the same. Long, unkempt hair, scruffy beard. Merle passes the crossbow back to him as Daryl steps forward. His eyes are downcast as Beth studies him. He has not looked at her, and she doesn’t think she has seen him at all these last few days as she followed Joe.

 

“Yeah?” Daryl’s voice is a low growl, more like he rarely uses it than anything else.

 

Joe pulls him away, as the rest of the men settle back into their areas, a few of them casting looks in her direction. Len actually sticks his hands down his pants when their eyes meet and Beth swiftly turns away. She listens to Joe and Daryl’s hushed conversation.

 

“Why me?”

 

“I can’t be awake twenty-four hours a day, and this little bitch is going to stir up tons of trouble between these fellas if someone doesn’t keep an eye out. You’re a reasonable man, Daryl. I like you. You don’t start any trouble, and you’ve helped keep the peace more than once.”

 

“If she’s so much trouble, why bother?”

 

“They go crazy for this type at Terminus and if you make it, the rewards...trust me, it will be worth it.”

 

Beth sucks in a breath. Wherever the hell Terminus is, she knows she doesn’t want to go there.

 

Joe pleads again. “Come on. I’ll throw you a favor. Make it up to you.” Daryl mumbles something in reply, and Beth quickly slides her face into a mask of oblivion when they approach her, standing over her. Her side still hurts and she doesn’t know if she’ll just be hit again for standing up, so she stays on the ground.

 

“Daryl’s gonna be your personal escort when we set out tomorrow,” Joe informs her gruffly. “And I expect you to be a good girl for him. Is that clear...hey honey, I don’t even know your name.”

 

She’s about to give it to him- it’s a natural reaction, after all, and it had always been her natual way, to be pleasing, to be a _good girl_. But suddenly, fiercely, she doesn’t want him to have anything else of hers. This, she can keep, and he cannot take. “Go to hell.” 

 

Joe draws his hand back in a fist, but stops himself again. Beth can see it- he doesn’t want her hurt too bad, for whatever reason. That’s something, for now. He turns back to Daryl, who’s staring at the ground, and pats him on the arm. Daryl’s shirt is sleeveless under his leather motorcycle vest and the muscles bulge and tense. “How these guns feeling, boy?”

 

“Fine,” Daryl mumbles, looking up at him in question.

 

“Good.” Joe lifts Beth’s foot out from under her, making her fall on her side again and he twists hard. She yelps as she can hear the crack- not broken but badly sprained, for sure. “You’re gonna be carrying this princess. My old back just can’t handle it.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks for the response and feedback! Please let me know what you think of this chapter and 'developments'.
> 
> Thanks again to badboy_fangirl for the beta.

***

Beth's thighs have gone numb. Her back aches from being hunched over. For not having actually _used_ her muscles all day, she’s a thousand times more sore than she was all the while following behind Joe, trying to keep up with her arms constrained and in her old Converse, with their poor support. 

 

When she’d been woken up after her pitiful escape attempt, Daryl was standing over her. “How’s your ankle?” he asked, his voice barely audible. She tested it out and winced. It was definitely swollen, she could see that. He sighed and slung his crossbow to hang off the front of his shoulder and crouched down. “Jump up.”

 

She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Are you serious?”

 

“Yeah, it’s a serious piggyback.” His response was flat, but Beth stayed on the ground. He looked down at her, expression completely unreadable. “Don’t got all day.”

 

She heaved herself up from the ground and awkwardly climbed onto his back, looping her wrists (still tied together) over his neck.

 

“Now, you ain’t thinking of putting my baby brother in a chokehold, are you?’ Merle had come over to join them and Beth didn’t even look at him. If only it would be that easy. No, she had learned her lesson about just running off half-cocked, and she definitely wasn’t going to be able to muscle this guy to the ground.

 

But without even the mundane task of walking, all Beth has to concentrate on are memories. And every time she closes her eyes, she sees Joe swinging a samurai sword straight into her father’s neck. She can hear her own blood-curdling scream, feel the soft bump of her father’s head rolling into her leg. It’s too surreal, but it’s all she sees and hears.

 

She has never known a world without her father. So this world can't be real.

 

Daryl hasn’t spoken, not one word. He walks about fifteen paces behind the rest of the men, but it’s not because carrying the extra weight has winded him (even though he muttered _you’re heavier’n you look_ when she hopped on his back), that’s for sure. Merle keeps circling back around to him, sometimes to tell him a joke, sometimes just to give some completely pointless information ( _my balls are itching something fierce_ ), and each time he eyes Beth warily, as if she _would_ be stupid enough to try to wrestle Daryl down in a chokehold. Joe has slowed down and walked beside them twice too, asking Daryl about any signs of game or herds. To both of them, Daryl answers with nods or shakes of his head, and once to a particularly bawdy joke from Merle (Beth had to hide her head behind his shoulder to conceal her blush), he grunts.

 

“Ah well. Probably about a week away from Terminus. You just keep this little one close and I’ll keep the rest of the boys in line, y’hear,” Joe says, slapping Daryl on the back and Beth flinches away from his hand. He winks at her and strides back to the rest of the group.

 

Terminus. She’s being saved for Terminus. And she can’t imagine that it’s going to be a friendly welcome. “What’s Terminus?” she asks in his ear. He doesn’t answer. “Hey...hey, what’s Terminus?” she asks louder. Still no response. She pinches him and he hisses in surprise, snaps his head back to look at her. His eyes are a bright, clear blue. That pop of color is in direct odds to everything else about him, dirty and dark without a hint of softness. The glint in his eyes also look completely pissed.

 

Shit.

 

Beth cowers down as much as being on another person’s back allows. “What’s Terminus?” she asks again, ths time in a whisper.

 

“I don’t know,” he finally answers. He pauses for a second, and she looks in his eyes again; whatever else he’s done, she believes him this. He’s in the dark as much as she is.And he snaps his head back to look in front of him.

 

And that’s the end of that conversation.

 

The sun is still high in the sky, and nobody has made any move to stop or take a break. Joe had brought her a handkerchief of shelled peanuts, but the filthy cloth kept her from reaching out, even though she was starving. She hadn’t eaten since that snake, and she’d barely had three bites of that. She thinks back to breakfast on the farm, eggs and grilled tomatoes and buttery toast...was it two days ago? Is that all? But she does gulp greedily at the water bottle Daryl hands back to her. It’s still summer in Georgia, no matter what else has changed in her once-quiet life.

 

Other things are still going on as usual too. “Can we stop?” she asks, forcing herself to not tag a _please_ on the end of the question. The manners her parents drilled into her don’t have a place in her life any more. But surprise, surprise, Daryl doesn’t give any indication that he’s heard her.

 

“Seriously, I need to stop,” she tries for a bit more firmness in her voice, and can hear a little bit of Maggie. “Look, if you don’t stop for a minute, _I am going to pee all down your back.”_

 

Daryl’s steps pause and then he pops her arms back over his head and lets go of her thighs. Her legs feel wobbly under her when she slides down to the ground. “Make it quick,” he spits. She can see Merle turn around up ahead with the group, and he and Daryl have a quick conversation with some sort of made-up sign language.

 

“Are you gonna watch?”

 

“No, I’m gonna _listen._ ” Beth ducks behind a tree, strangely grateful for any amount of privacy. Joe _had_ watched her, that first night by the fire. 

 

With no better options, she shake dries and awkwardly pulls her jeans up with her tied wrists. They’re rubbed raw under the rope. She looks over and Daryl is about six trees away, with his back to her. She takes a minute to breathe in the fresh air, and closes her eyes. 

 

_Daddy. Mom. Maggie. Shawn._

 

Her eyes fly open, and she pushes the thoughts away from her mind, far, far away and moves to head back to Daryl.

 

And something grabs at her ankle, her good one. Yanked to the ground, Beth lets out a scream and looks down at her feet. 

 

It’s...it’s one of those things. Like her mom and all the rest in the barn. All the rest that her daddy was trying to save. It’s snapping and pulling at her, impossibly strong as she kicks with all her might, and tries to push herself to standing with her tied hands. A grotesque image of what had once been a person, its lower half raggedly torn off. 

 

Would it be easier to let go? 

 

No.

 

Beth kicks and claws at the ground, this thing is not going to get her.

 

And then, out of nowhere, an arrow pierces the thing clean through the eye. It had missed her by no more than two inches.

 

Heart pounding, she looks back in the direction where Daryl had been, and he is walking over, with a hint of purpose and urgency. “Did it get you?” She shakes her head no, unable to find the breath to answer. She had never been so close to one.

 

He falls next to her and grabs her ankle, looking for a break in the clothing, but it’s untorn. “Scratch you? Nothing?” She shakes her head, still afraid to speak for fear of letting out a sob. There’s a shuffle of leaves and Daryl’s got his bow back in his hands, aiming at the sound, but it’s the rest of the men loping back towards them, Merle hurrying along in the front.

 

Joe lunges forward and grabs Daryl by his collar. “Heard her scream...that’s not part of our deal, Dixon.” Merle already is pulling Joe back but all three of them are breathing hard, all glares and ready to kill each other, and Beth starts to laugh hysterically at the thought of Joe charging in to defend her honor from Daryl.

 

“Don’t worry Joe, he didn’t _touch_ me,” she speaks up and they all look at her. She still doesn’t know what’s in store for her at Terminus, but whatever it is, he wants her untouched until they get there ( _in tact_ , as he’d said the other night). She takes a quick glance around at the other men, all still have their hands on their weapons, ready to shoot. Anything to survive. “It was...one of those things.”

 

“Just a rotter,” Daryl adds, adjusting his shirt back to the front. He looks back at the rest of the men. “Go on ahead, y’all.” And then to Joe. “Talk to me for a minute?” None of them move, as they all look to Joe for instruction. After a minute, he waves them forward. Merle hangs back, but he and Daryl have another one of their silent conversations and he heads on as well.

 

When they’re alone, Daryl glances down at her before he speaks to Joe, and from then on, it’s like she’s not there at all.

 

“You can’t move her like this,” Daryl says. “She’ll never make it, you know that. She needs a knife, something.”

 

Beth holds her breath. Whatever she’d thought he was going to say, it wasn’t that.

 

Joe laughs. “I ain’t giving her a knife.”

 

Daryl looks back down at her, that same hard, unreadable look in his eyes and then he jerks her up by her elbow. It pulls at the rope and she whimpers a little bit, by accident. _Dang._ “Tied up, no weapon, she’s gonna end up a rotter meal before you get her anywhere near to Terminus.” He forces her arms out towards Joe, showing him the blisters on her wrist. “Not very pretty, either.”

 

Joe laughs again, and Beth cannot believe how much he finds to be humorous in this world. “You’re gonna make it a lot harder on yourself, giving her free rein.”

 

Daryl looks down at her, and Beth feels about two feet tall. Like she could ever overpower him. “I’ll handle it.”

 

Joe takes her hands and turns her towards him, giving her that same leering grin as when he’d asked her if she was a virgin. “I’ll tell you what, sugar. You give me your name promise to be a good girl and I’ll untie your hands. Would you like that?”

 

Beth thinks about it for a second. And then she spits, as hard as she can. It lands on Joe’s boot. His smile goes darker. “You keep that fire, sugar. Nobody wants to play with a corpse.” He looks over at Daryl. “She stays tied up.”

 

“I am _not_ an animal!” Her scream is primal, and unexpected, even to her. They both are stopped stock still for a minute.

 

Joe steps closer to her and lifts her chin with his thick, grubby fingers, tilting her face to look her in the eye. “In this world, you’re the cattle or you’re the butcher,” he pauses. “You definitely ain’t no butcher.”

 

Beth lets the words sink into her and all they imply- she hated the days when Daddy and Otis would slaughter the steers, though she understood it was part of her family’s way of life. And then seeing the sides of beef hanging in the ice house off their property, trying to decipher which had been the brown, which had been the spotted black...

 

She hears a sharp _slice_ and her wrists are freed and she gasps at the way she feels the freedom all through her, from her shoulders through her chest, and she rotates her wrists, letting the joints crack. They’re blistered and bleeding, but it’s a thousand times better.

 

“The fuck, Daryl-” Joe is pissed.

 

“I _got_ her,” Daryl says firmly. “I got her, I’ll handle it.”

 

Joe looks up at the sky, darkening, and decides against dragging out another argument. “You fuckin’ better, Dixon.” He points up ahead to the other men, who have slowed their walk to a crawl, watching Joe and Daryl’s exchange. “Come on, catch up.”

 

Daryl adjusts his crossbow back over the front of his shoulder, and nods at her. She thinks she should thank him, but says nothing, just allows him to pull her onto his back.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you had been reading my other fic _Wildwood Flower_ , that is NOT abandoned.


End file.
